You probably didn't notice ...

but I haven't been doing much blogging lately.
Well, you worst fears have come to pass, the gun debate critic blog is being discontinued until further notice.

If you enjoyed reading here, you can use one of the many notification services to be made aware if I should return to posting.

As for now, I have other matters to attend to.

Here's what's wrong with the world today:

Seriously, how long is Ishida going to keep this up, it only keeps getting better since he started ... over a week ago already?

There's something wrong with this country, a phrase from V for Vendetta, a lesson to be learned from this cartoon.

No less than lethal .... murder?

Or: when police officers blatantly violate directions and people die.

Suppose that a man is threatening to jump into his death, standing on a ledge three floors up, what is the right thing to do? Call in a negotiator, set up an inflatable cushion?
Well, according to one NYC "only one", deploying a stun gun is the way to go!

Let's see

1. Officers had radioed for an inflatable bag as the incident unfolded, but it had not yet arrived
2. the guidelines issued with the expansion in June specifically state that when possible, the stun guns "should not be used ... in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface
3. So far this year, stun guns have been used 180 times. No other deaths have been reported.

No not murder, negligent manslaughter ... if anything.

Oleg Volk needs you!

If you've been wondering what's up with the high road forum, get over here , read and weep ... or better yet, join the scores of arduous gun rights supporters in bankrolling legal action against a died in the wool thief!

Yee of little faith

• I didn't know that the current crisis/bailout issue could be made funny until I say that.

• -Learnabout guns, "the rich will go on"

Not only can almost anything be made fun of, I don't think Tatsuya Ishida is nowhere near finished.
Point to prove: Today's cartoon.
In bad taste or funny as hell? I for one laughed and felt a little guilty, what about you?

*UPDATE*

One day later ... the boost you need to keep fucking liberty.

Assault flatulence

Monty python may have jokingly said "I fart in your general direction", but passing gas has been considered an offensive act ... and by offensive I mean to say that a man who farted in the vicinity of a police officer has been charged with battery on a police officer.

Do we need gas control laws to protect our policemen, and: is this why some local governments seem hell bent on shutting down junk food outlets?

Time will tell, or probably won't.

When you say "assault weapons ban"

... all I hear is: ban on robust entry level guns that are cheap and easy to maintain by people new to the shooting sports.

Secret bomb ingrediënt my ...

Whenever the media get their hands on an amateur bomber, they turn and twist stuff around faster and harder than the large hadron collider.

Acetone peroxide becomes "the mother of satan", fertillizer is a national threat and aluminum powder is a "secret ingredient" that makes bombs super-duper dangerous with a twist. Yeah I'm snapping at you, wired ...

Aluminium has been used for ages to increase the density of explosives as well as correct or intentionally throw off the oxygen balance. Aluminium, Al by it's scientific name has seen extensive use by amateur high energy chemists in compositions such as ANAl wax, ANNMAl and many more. The military uses it in huge crude explosives. It is not a secret, it is common practice for military ordonance and amateur concoctions alike.

Stop with the PSH! Needlessly scaring people to terrorist acts defeats the purpose of terrorism, don't do their job for them!

Man recovers the rifle issued to his father in Korea

• It is a rare person who does not attach some sort of value or emotion to some physical object or to an event. A home becomes more than a building. A statue of the Virgin Mary, a crucifix, a flag or a song, or even a photograph can stir emotions greater than the value of the material item. (...) our guns are more than metal and wood.

From the essay "metal and wood" by Dennis Bateman


A veteran who served in Korea with a .30 carbine managed to retain the serial number of his service weapon. With this number, his son managed to track down and acquire the rifle.
Much reminiscing ensued.

Not just pieces of wood and metal ... not something that could ever be "bought back".

The rich will go on.

A beautifull, heart warming story that has so many hooks and angles: the conflict between the rich and poor, love that transcends classes, the expendable nature of some human life, the allusion to nudity and a pig to sing about the downfall of the US economy all summarized in a five strip cartoon.

Check it out!

A quiet day ...

... nothing much to blog about, so here's some gun porn:

A .50 beowulf AR

Belgium is making a mistake (education)

School starts Monday, we had the introduction /slash/ first chance to pick up books and rosters today, as well as a speech about the introduction of educational credits ... learning credits they're called.

If you're just in it for the guns -what the hell are you doing *here*- you might want to skip todays post. I think education is a great way to further society, so it concerns me, and what I've learned today is upsetting.

So the fedgov is trying to get more bang for their buck when pumping money in the higher education system. They want people to get into school, enjoy a subsidized education under high speed low drag conditions before hopping into the job market without looking back and becoming yet another high earning taxpayer, paying enough taxes to continue to support subsidized education, the boomers retirement, healthcare for the masses and welfare for the unfortunate.

Starting this year, each student who enrolls in one of Belgiums many fine colleges or universities will be allotted 140 "learning credits" (LC). Enrollment in a course requires a certain amount of LC's. For example, my course in chemistry would have cost me 6 points, which are refunded if you pass the course. The first 60 points you earn back are doubled, so you can end with 200 points max if you successfully complete a 60 point program.

Of course, if you fail, nothing gets refunded, and you just lost your learning credit rating. This is intended to prevent people from enrolling in a class without the sincere intention of seeing ot to the end.
Also, when you succesfully complete a masters education, you LOSE 140 points, just like that! In an effort to force academics out of the academy, the government will now cripple their credit rating.

If you do not have the adequate amount of points to enroll in a course, you'll be required to pay a higher enrollment fee. The government doesn't subsidize any courses you can't put on your own credit, but they also prohibit colleges and universities from asking more than twice the enrollmetn fee, even though the real cost of a course can be five times the subsidised rate! This will result in institutions refusing applicants.

Now, I'm going to my senior year, and everybody who's already enrolled is also just given 140 points, so this doesn't really apply to me ... thank god. I bended around the university for a year you know ... touristing is what they call it. While I did earn multiple academic credits, I didn't take the thing serious. I learned a LOT, I enjoyed myself and I grew as a person, I could! Education was not expensive, I had my parents to provide me with a home and food and clothes and whatnot ... I did fine, and now I'm doing GREAT in a collega that I *am* taking serious.

So when we were geting this explaination about the new situation, I turned to a university buddy of mine (yes, plenty of folk from the university ended up in the same college as me) and said: thank god they're only doing this now. Everybody else next to me agreed.
Said buddy tried and failed his freshman year in the university twice. Not for a lack of dedication or intelligence, it just took him that long to figure out that that wasn't what was right for him, he blazed through this colleges courses at the same speed as me.

Under the current system, he would have been out over a hundred points, I would be at 90-something. He might not be here, and I wouldn't be nearly as confortable.
Don't tell me it's a hard life and school is about work ok! If there's ever going to be any time for me to relax and enjoy life, it's now, and my parents live in a country with a 45% tax pressure rate to make that possible!

Yeh, that's the price you pay for socialized healthcare, subsidized education and whatnot, 45% of what you "earn". That's what I'm looking at for roughly fifty years, so don't tell me I can't take these years of MY life to myself.

I believe this new policy will turn some people away from higher education, it will degrade the academic level of my home country and all I can do is sit here, rant about it and think to myself: thank god I already had my year of fun ... sometimes I disgust myself.

Student planned to shoot and bomb others ...

... but apparently didn't have a gun or explosives.

Contrary to what KSN is claiming, police did NOT find explosives in the home of a student who had claimed he wanted to shoot and bomb other students. After this was heard by other students and passing it on to the proper authorities, the angry ones house was raided and an incendiary device was recovered.

While I'll be the first to admit that incendiaries are very dangerous (more so than explosives in my opinion), they are not explosives. Firebombs aren't "explosives" and even then: incendiary device could be anything from a thermite grenade* to a Molotov cocktail or just a plastic bottle of coleman fuel.

* military designation: AN-M14 TH3

World of crafty terror?

So the fed is starting to worry about terrorists discussing their evil schemes ... over world of warcraft?
Well, terrorists or other criminals could hypothetically use these games chat channels, coupled with some code-language to discuss the detail of their crimes. I mean, it would be perfectly possible to set up a drug deal over WoW (drugs are the anti-WoW after all), I suppose one could be talking worse as well.

I just feel like people are digging deep here, and I hope they've got better avenues than this one to pursue ...

• some day soon, we might find secret agents in World of Warcraft, along with the druids and orcs and night elves.

Hm, 60's era LSD ring infiltration all over again eh?

Is this guy serious?

Ah the internet, a place for free sharing of ideas and opinions. A place for social networking, a place where aspiring artists can be heard, and a place were by the cover of anonymity you can openly call for the extermination of a demographic as well as their innocent and uninvolved family.

I'm talking about a Mr. Anonymous over at Marilyns, responding to a post where a man pulled out a gun after a road rage incident:

• This so-called 'preacher', Thomas Howell, needs to be disarmed and arrested again but this time he should be tired to a chair, his entire family brought before him and shot with his gun. It is what these Bronze Age neaderthals teach with thsir god based eye-for-an-eye savagery. Then he needs to be shot as well.
  
  In fact everyone who buys or owns a gun needs to be killed with their own death machines, its the only way to get through to them and high time too!
  I'm sure the non-violence people here agree with me that is how to create a peaceful world. Kill off all the supporters of violence in our self defece!
  
  Good to see I am agreed with, kill all gun owners and their infected families for the safety and betterment of all mankind. Then we will have peace.
  
  no they can not, guns take over the minds of people and make them feel like gods with the power of life and death over everyone else. there is no treatment or cure for the insanity of guns once exposed to the. the only hope for the rest of us is for the gun owners, their families to be taken and tied up then killed and the guns finally melted down.
  
  its the only way. the only way to get rid of the source of the mental infection of guns and the people who believe in them destroy everyone who comes in contract with them. once that law is passed and put into effect we will get a handle on the plague of gun violence by destroying them all, guns and gun owners. see? it just takes a law to make the killing legal for public safety sake and that will justify it. i'm serious.

(all emphasis mine)

Now, this could be another idiot trying to smear the other side, there's no way to tell really. But this day and age, it would not surprise me that there really are people like this. Remember: a full out race and class war if McCain is elected?

What's your take on this?

Smartguns with sensored grips?

There's been a bit of chatter lately about the new "smart guns", guns equipped with grips that feel your grip as to determine who is holding the gun. Only if the authorized user is holding the gun, is it supposed to be able to fire. I'd like to theorize a bit about the pitfalls of this ideology.

No, I'm not going to make the "lend it out", "change your grip" or "criminals would rip the safety out" arguments over again. I'd like to focus on the "information" aspect.

The following text is strictly speculation, based on no evidence whats however, I am merely fantasizing, bear with me or tune out.

From pictures, I venture to guess that these grips have pressure sensors in them at various places. The lock and key model applies to this perfectly. Just like a key needs to be of specific height at every pin, I guess that your grip would have to be of sufficient strength but not too strong at each sensor. Just like locks allow for small deviation in key tooth height, a gun locking system would have to allow for some slight deviation as well.

This deviation, let's call it "tolerance" will be a factor of great interest; too loose and the lock will open for every grip. Too tight and even an experienced shooter will not be able to operate his own firearm. Laws would have to be drafted to regulate this tolerance, if not, a gun grip producer could market grips with such tolerance that pretty anybody with the same grip technique and hand size could operate a locked firearm, even if it wasn't "registered" to him/her.

There's a bigger problem. This information would have to be stored in the locking device, and can therefor be tampered with. A chip burner would become a pretty wise investment for a black market gun dealer or straw purchaser. This is assuming that the information is stored on a chip. I suppose it could be a magnetic strip such as on the credit cards that get hijacked cloned and altered on a regular basis by fraudsters and identity thieves. Heck, it could be a flash memory chip for all I know, which would pose even less of a challenge.

This may sound like organized crime turf, but is it really? People who buy defensive guns want the most reliable ones. Your average gun owner just might decide to make his gun more reliable by loosening up the tolerances, defeating the purpose of making his gun childproof for one. Said gun would have a higher chance of unlocking for a criminal as well.

Less than lethal, a comprehensive text

So I found this Brit text about alternatives to likely lethal weapons, a.k.a. firearms.
The article contains a lot of information concerning these less than lethal alternatives, such as their capabilities and flaws. A great read if you're new to the subject, or would just like to see what kind of bean bags are around and such.

Much more interesting to me were the comments both in the article and those added by readers.
Here's a nice conclusion:

• The limitations of Tasers and impact rounds mean that firearms officers cannot be instructed not to consider the use of anything except "less lethal weapons".

  "It would be inappropriate for commanders or supervisory officers to attempt to restrict the deployment of an authorised firearms officer to a particular less lethal technology or personal safety tactical option,"

In plain English: A less than lethal only policy is a recipe for disaster. Police officers should not be restricted to such gizmo's, not without the availability of a normal likely lethal weapon as backup. Why you ask?

• "Additionally, it has been shown that it is possible, in certain circumstances, for some individuals to maintain enough control to aim and fire a weapon while under the effects of Taser."

A taser does not always stop a violent attacker. A gun isn't guaranteed to do so either, but you get multiple shots, and each one has a fair chance of stopping a lethal attacker. I'd venture to say that a single 9mm round (cops carry glock 17's over here) isn't guaranteed to stop an attacker, I'd even say one may very well survive it, even if the shot incapacitates him. But with such a weapon, you can easely have up to a dozen rounds available.

What? Do I shock you? (no pun intended) Yes I am talking about killing people. No, I do not like the prospect, I vamue life and dream of a world free of violence, still I talk about cutting life short, why? Let me quote some commenters with whom I completely agree:

• As a former Police Firearms officer I believe that short of many police offiers losing their lives in such incidents there are no other alternatives but to shoot a person dead if he or she will not lay down their firearm when ordered to do so, if they fail to lay down their arms they know the consequences of their actions. (...) (The Police Officers) are protecting their own lives as well as members of the public.

• Let me get this straight: Your officers have to put their lives on the line for you and then fumble through 3 or 4 options while a criminal is endangering their lives and those of the truly innocent people around them. If the criminal happens to die in the police response, it's the fault of the officer? You don't deserve them. Defend yourselves.

A truely interesting read.

Yesterday silence.

So yeah, I spent all of yesterday playing the original fallout game, in expectation of bethesda's rendering of the third installment hitting shop shelves in October.

I took a combat heavy character with the "good mannered" trait, my initial combat skills were crippled, but I could talk, barter and gamble like noone else. After some scientific exploits, a little persuasion and some hard work as a doctor, I leveled up and got acquainted with small arms.
I eventually turned into a compulsively gambling computer hacker that could blow a super mutants eyes out with a bolt of plasma at 50 feet.
But I ended up destroying both the military base and the cathedral with some hacking work, and lockpicking skills I picked when standing in front of the last locked door in the game.

Later in "real" life, I wanted to do a piece on that hammer-attack, but uncle beat me to that.

The reinstitution of banishment

Justice:

1. A crime is committed by a person or group of people.
2. This person is brought before a judge and a jury of his peers.
3. He is tried and judged, and if applicable: sentenced to undergo a punishment.
4. The person serves his time, repays his debts.
5. The person is once again a free man.

Well, often there are some additional conditions, you can lose your right to vote or that to own a target rifle, but generally, you do the time and your time is done.

Not so in Manchester New Hampshire where the major seeks to return to the dark ages by effectively banishing a man who has previously served his time. The man, a convicted killer who has been released from prison after serving his 25 year sentence and ten years more, now lives in a boarding house where probation officers intend to monitor him. Mister major demands he be removed and placed elsewhere, in someone else's city.

The major joins the ranks of other countless majors who seek to usurp additional powers, other than those granted by the electorate. He does not want this man, who was already punished for his actions, living in "his" town. "His" town? ... the majors? Isn't it the town of the people who live there?

I have little sympathy for this criminal as a person. He did after all kill somebody, but he also served his time, forfeited a certain amount of civil rights and now he is a free man once more. Free to go and live wherever he pleases. He needs not be punished any further by being bounced forth between nanny statist trying to control his life further.

Furthermore, I find it repulsive that an elected official show such a lack of faith in the justice system! Why doesn't he want that guy around? Does he know something we don't about the effectiveness of prison terms, probation and rehabilitation? Does he intend to openly admit that the prison based justice system doesn't work? If so, does he not have bigger fish to fry than dogging this one old man who just spend 35 years in captivity?

golf club accident leaves 7 y/o dead.

It's a scene from cartoons and comics, one person swings an object such as a baseball bat, a wooden beam or plank, and accidentally hits somebody over the head with it.

Well, it happened with a golf club recently, and the person struck was a seven year old child. The boy did not survive the incident.

The video of that girl handling a rifle sparked outrage in some, provoking comments such as "she should be doing girly stuff". Well, accidents can happen everywhere, and some sports are more dangerous than others.
Kids die in accidental shootings too, but at a far lower rate. That girl doing fire drills, she's probably safer off than the other girl in cheerleading.

Think about that.